SCOTT WEBB/Unsplash Everyone knows leaders should delegate to ensure that they are working on the right projects and deliverables.  But if you find yourself frequently miscommunicating with your team on deliverables, hearing about issues at the last minute, and...

Maskot/Getty Images Career or child care? It’s an unfortunate dilemma faced by every working woman with a baby on the way. Should she take a lengthy maternity leave, knowing that more time at home can improve the well-being of both mother and child? After all,...

Charles McQuillan/Getty Images “I don’t quite know what to do next,” said Simon, a media CEO. Simon had been a chief executive for 15 years, and CFO before he was 30. He had turned around private and public companies, quadrupled profits and...

Peter Dazeley/Getty Images Ever since the forced bankruptcy of the investment bank Lehman Brothers triggered the financial crisis 10 years ago, regulators, risk managers, and central bankers around the globe have focused on shoring up banks’ ability to withstand...

Katie Edwards/Getty Images We tend to romanticize leadership. When friends are promoted to managerial positions, we slap them on the back, tell them that they finally made it, and congratulate them for their hard work. Our reactions are understandable. Occupying a...

Jon Feingersh/Getty Images Planning has long been one of the cornerstones of management. Early in the twentieth century Henri Fayol identified the job of managers as to plan, organize, command, coordinate, and control. The capacity and willingness of managers to plan...

Tatsiana Volskaya/Getty Images We all know the old script: join a company, work hard, move up the ladder. But it’s been decades since that was a reliable path, and not just because of layoffs or outsourcing or robots. These days, the culprit preventing many...

Customers’ needs, wants, and preferences are rapidly reshaping business in the digital age. With social and mobile technology always in hand, consumers expect companies to be available online at any time with high-quality customer experiences. These connected...

Patrick George/Getty Images We live in unequal times. The causes and consequences of widening disparities in income and wealth have become a defining debate of our age. Researchers have made major inroads into documenting trends in either income or wealth inequality...

Patrick George/Getty Images We live in unequal times. The causes and consequences of widening disparities in income and wealth have become a defining debate of our age. Researchers have made major inroads into documenting trends in either income or wealth inequality...

Alfred Huber /Getty Images Supervisors enjoy all kinds of advantages that come with their positions: they have control over resources, make important decisions, enjoy higher salaries and other valuable perks, and have opportunities to network with power-brokers both...

Ilka & Franz/Getty Images Companies achieve remarkable things. They create products for customers, financial returns for investors, and jobs for employees. At the same time, they develop medications that cure deadly diseases, technologies that bring internet...

AnthonyRosenberg/Getty Images Love it or hate it, office politics is an inevitable part of organizational life. Many people associate political behavior with backstabbing and manipulation — but there is a constructive side to being politically savvy. Being...

cintascotch/Getty Images U.S. companies are expected to spend more than $37 billion dollars on social media promotion annually each year by 2020, representing 24% of the economy’s total digital advertising spend. It’s an astounding number, given that the...

Jens Magnusson/Getty Images As an executive coach, I speak regularly at corporate leadership development programs. During discussions, participants often confess the real reason they’re in the room, and it’s rarely “to grow and learn.” Time and...

Jens Magnusson/Getty Images As an executive coach, I speak regularly at corporate leadership development programs. During discussions, participants often confess the real reason they’re in the room, and it’s rarely “to grow and learn.” Time and...

FREDERICK FLORIN/Staff/Getty Images Most corporate team building is a waste of time and money. I say this based on my 25+ years of research and practice in the field of team effectiveness. Seventeen of those years were with Mars Inc., a family-owned $35 billion global...

Ming Zeng, the chief strategy officer at Alibaba, talks about how the China-based e-commerce company was able to create the biggest online shopping site in the world. He credits Alibaba’s retail and distribution juggernaut to leveraging automation, algorithms,...

Hoxton/Sam Edwards/Getty Images Imagine that a temporary absence from your workplace could lead to 10 years of sustained high performance being forgotten. Imagine that your relationship with senior partners at your firm, with whom you had previously worked closely,...

Stan Tekiela Author/Getty Images Every day we get new reminders of just how tough the war for talent can be. It isn’t enough to attract the greatest employees — you have to retain them. That’s become a bigger challenge with “job...

Michael Steffen / EyeEm/Getty Images Since at least the time of Frederick Taylor, the father of “scientific management,” control has been central to corporate organization: Control of costs, of prices, of investment and—not least—of people....

Juj Winn/Getty Images Just becoming a leader is enough to exacerbate some people’s unethical tendencies. But power does not corrupt everyone. Our research suggests that key personality characteristics predict unethical leadership behavior. We collected...

Michael SnellE/Getty Images In 1545, Jacopo da Pontormo scored a major commission from Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici to paint the main chapel of Florence’s church of San Lorenzo. A contemporary of masters like Michelangelo, Pontormo was a distinguished but...

Rafael Ben-Ari/Getty Images [T]echnology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.  — Steve Jobs Steve Jobs’s vision for Apple was...

Patrick George/Getty Images Imagine you’re drafting an email about a sensitive project when you realize you need to keep your supervisor in the loop. You decide to Bcc her on the email. Later, the rest of the team finds out. How does this make them feel? Email...

Peter Dazeley/Getty Images Leadership training can make a huge difference in preparing professionals to advance in their careers and succeed in leadership roles. Many companies offer leadership education programs to high-potential employees, but these programs...

PM Images/Getty Images In 2010, Google rocked the $60 billion broadband industry by announcing plans to deploy fiber-based home internet service, offering connections up to a gigabit per second — 100 times faster than average speeds at the time. Google Fiber, as...

CSA Images/Getty Images Despite the $15 billion companies spend annually on managerial and leadership development, bad bosses are common in the American workforce.  A study by Life Meets Work found that 56% of American workers claim their boss is mildly or...

Does your organization lack quality leadership? In this episode of HBR’s advice podcast, Dear HBR:, cohosts Alison Beard and Dan McGinn answer your questions with the help of Peter Bregman, the CEO of Bregman Partners and author of the book Leading with...

Edward Munsch/Christophel Fine Art/Getty Images Dirk was puzzled about what just happened. To the best of his knowledge, he had only asked Jerome (a recently hired senior executive), to deal more proactively with some of the company’s clients. But Jerome had...

David Malan/Getty Images President Trump has just asked the SEC to study the implications of moving to a half-yearly reporting deadline instead of the current requirement to file 10-Q forms on a quarterly basis. Over the years, I have heard from plenty of managers who...

David Malan/Getty Images President Trump has just asked the SEC to study the implications of moving to a half-yearly reporting deadline instead of the current requirement to file 10-Q forms on a quarterly basis. Over the years, I have heard from plenty of managers who...

Susanna Price/Getty Images The U.S. grocery industry has reached an interesting and uncertain crossroads. In 2017, German discount grocery retailers  ALDI and LIDL announced plans to open hundreds of new stores across the United States. ALDI plans to open 900...

Leigh Wells/Getty Images Appointing workers’ representatives to company boards may be an idea whose time has come. Politicians seem to like it. The most recent politician to make such a proposal is U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren who would like to require...

Patrick George/Getty Images It’s a Catch-22 millions of workers face: You plan a vacation to relax, rejuvenate, and forget all about the stresses of work. But being out of the office means cramming in extra work up until you leave — and making up for...

hideki kuwajima/Getty Images We know it’s awkward, talking about class. Especially in the United States, talking about class is considered taboo. When the subject comes up, otherwise articulate and extroverted people suddenly clam up and be struck dumb by the...

Martin Diebel/Getty Images When David White became Global VP of Supply Chain at Campbell Soup Company in 2004, the company had a shocking lost-time injury rate of 1.24%. This meant that of the 24,000 people working in the company at the time, one person per day was...

david malan/Getty Images Imagine you are a member of a purchasing team. Your manager sets a goal: she wants everyone on your team to make at least one deal with a supply company of their choice. You end up signing a deal with a supplier who offers a great price, but...

Noctiluxx/Getty Images When it comes to design thinking, the bloom is off the rose. Billed as a set of tools for innovation, design thinking has been enthusiastically and, to some extent, uncritically adopted by firms and universities alike as an approach for the...

Noctiluxx/Getty Images When it comes to design thinking, the bloom is off the rose. Billed as a set of tools for innovation, design thinking has been enthusiastically and, to some extent, uncritically adopted by firms and universities alike as an approach for the...

Icon Sportswire/Contributor/Getty Images Urban Meyer, the highly-decorated head football coach of Ohio State University was recently suspended without pay for three games for how he handled domestic violence allegations against his long-time assistant coach, Zach...

Marc Effron, president of the Talent Strategy Group, looked at the scientific literature behind high performance at work and identified eight steps we can all take to get an edge. Among those steps is taking care of your body — sleep, exercise, and nutrition....

Icon Sportswire/Contributor/Getty Images Urban Meyer, the highly-decorated head football coach of Ohio State University was recently suspended without pay for three games for how he handled domestic violence allegations against his long-time assistant coach, Zach...

Icon Sportswire/Contributor/Getty Images Urban Meyer, the highly-decorated head football coach of Ohio State University was recently suspended without pay for three games for how he handled domestic violence allegations against his long-time assistant coach, Zach...

Icon Sportswire/Contributor/Getty Images Urban Meyer, the highly-decorated head football coach of Ohio State University was recently suspended without pay for three games for how he handled domestic violence allegations against his long-time assistant coach, Zach...

tang yau hoong/Getty Images A manager gives an employee overly-positive feedback to boost their confidence. A doctor gives a patient a too-rosy prognosis to foster hope. A government official conceals a security threat to prevent widespread panic. These are relatively...

dan herrick/Getty Images Stressed. Anxious. Exhausted. Drained. This is how many employees feel at work due to stressors like longer work hours, more-frequent hassles, the need to do more with fewer resources, and so on. Such work stress has been shown to induce...

dan herrick/Getty Images Stressed. Anxious. Exhausted. Drained. This is how many employees feel at work due to stressors like longer work hours, more-frequent hassles, the need to do more with fewer resources, and so on. Such work stress has been shown to induce...

alice mollon/Getty Images Don’t underestimate the power of women connecting and supporting each other at work. As my experiences from being a rookie accountant to a managing director at an investment bank have taught me, conversations between women have massive...

Westend61/Getty Images “I’m calling on behalf of my partner. He died, and I need to close his account.” When Matt drowned in a fast-moving river, it fell to me to cancel his credit cards, close out the utilities at his apartment, and manage his cell...

Wong/Unsplash The news headlines about what perks or elements of office design make for a great employee experience seem to be dominated by fads — think treadmill desks, nap pods, and “bring your dog to work day” for starters. However, a new...

Wong/Unsplash The news headlines about what perks or elements of office design make for a great employee experience seem to be dominated by fads — think treadmill desks, nap pods, and “bring your dog to work day” for starters. However, a new...

Ansgar Schwarz/EyeEm/Getty Images Is digital technology a democratizing force, allowing smaller, newer companies to compete against giant ones? Or does it provide even greater advantage to incumbents? That question has gotten a lot of attention lately, in response to...

Jorg Greuel/Getty Images Women of color are a force in the U.S. economy. They are projected to make up the majority of all women by 2060, which means they’ll also likely become the majority of the U.S. workforce. They also generate $1 trillion as consumers and...